Webinar: NOAA's 3km Rapid Refresh Weather Forecasting Models and Renewable Energy Forecasts

Featured Speaker: Dave Turner, Sr. Scientist, NOAA Global Systems Laboratory

About the Webinar: The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is home to the National Weather Service (NWS), which runs numerical weather prediction models operationally and provides the output freely to all; these forecasts are used heavily by the energy community. The webinar will include discussion of the short-range weather model used by the NWS; the high-resolution rapid refresh (HRRR) system. The HRRR uses a 3-km horizontal grid, is restarted every hour using all of the available observations, and provides forecasts out to 18 hours, with longer forecasts out to 48 hours 4 times per day. The webinar will cover some of the changes that have been incorporated into the HRRR that were motivated by the energy community. NOAA is moving towards a Unified Forecast System, and thus eventually the HRRR will be replaced by the Rapid Refresh Forecast System (RRFS). Dr. Turner will also discuss how the RRFS differs from the HRRR, provide some timelines, and a view for the next few years.